Daly not a tragic figure

Will Daly give us a reason to cheer someday ... or has his career gone up in smoke?

   The British Open is always a highlight for me on the sports calendar,
but every year, it also makes me a little sad.
   On a thrilling weekend 13 years ago, I became a golf and John Daly
fan forever. During the Open that year at St. Andrews, Daly’s
incredible playoff victory over Costantino Rocca sold me on a sport
and individual that I knew nothing about. At that point, I knew nothing
of his miraculous 1991 PGA Championship win at Crooked Stick as
the final alternate, which catapulted him to instant fame.
   Daly’s triumph in the ‘95 Open was supposed to be another huge
block in the foundation of greatness. But 13 years and just one PGA
Tour win later, he is more of a cartoon-like caricature of a man and
more sideshow than serious competitor.
   Fans say that Daly represents the every-man, and in many ways,
that’s true.
   Many of us have had parasitic significant others, that suck life’s
blood out of you like a vampire that just woke up from a 100-year
slumber. Though Daly has no doubt contributed to his four failed
marriages, he has had a knack for picking the wrong girl.
   Many of us have dealt with — directly or indirectly — alcoholism and
other addictions. Daly’s primary hereditary flaw is that he has a
turbo-charged addictive personality. Just like his “grip it and rip it”
approach to golf, he goes 110 percent when it comes to drinking,
eating, smoking, and gambling.
   In trying to frame Daly’s life off the course, I think the words of Hunter
S. Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” might sum him
up best, “There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. Some kind of
high powered mutant never even considered for mass production.
Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”
   Everything that Tiger Woods is, Daly is not. Though blessed with
undeniable natural talent, he has never put in the time to succeed on
a consistent basis. Woods had drive and focus as a child, and fame
never clouded that. Daly’s quick rise to stardom only fueled his
equally fast fall from grace, and it has often been one of the more
disappointing things in sports to behold.
   But what Daly lacks in professional work ethic in comparison to
Woods, he buries Tiger in one huge area — his direct relationship
with fans. While Woods is about as accessible as Howard Hughes,
Daly’s gracious personality has endeared him to fans of all ages.
He never says “no” to an autograph request and his alcohol
consumption is often helped by having drinks with his legion of
supporters, which is only outnumbered by Woods.’
   Though he now depends on exemptions to get into most events,
and though he rarely makes the cut, Daly is still a big reason why I
watch golf, and I’ll always be glued to the TV if he makes it to the
weekend. I don’t look at him as a tragic figure. I see him as a flawed
individual — like all of us — that couldn’t handle the taxing price of
fame. His destiny was never going to be what most had in mind.
   While I’m sure Daly would’ve done a lot of things different over the
years, he is still a salute to the imperfect nature of mankind, and
while many are appalled by his behavior, he inspires others with his
refusal to give up entirely despite his punch-line status.
   There are a lot of things I’d like to see before I die. One of them is
John Daly hoisting a major championship trophy one more time.
While the odds are stacked against that happening, I’ll never count
him out, and maybe on a blustery Sunday in July across the big
pond someday, Big John will do just that.